CURRENT
RELIGIOUS CLIMATE IN SPAIN
(Roman Catholic and Evangelical Statistics for Spain)
Roman Catholicism
The
current population of Spain is over 44 million people
(44,108,530). Historically, Spain has been a
Roman Catholic country, with the majority
of people professing to be Roman Catholic. However,
recent statistics indicate that fewer and fewer
Spaniards associate with the Roman Catholic Church, and
Catholicism is now struggling to hold ground in a
changed society. The Archbishop of Madrid recently called for faithful
Catholics to remember their need for missionary
outreach:
“The [Madrid] Diocese must enter into the open mission field, to search for those that no longer belong to the Church and for those who do but only weakly relate to the Church. It is an indisputable fact that many people who live in Madrid today not only do not know the gospel, but they live as though God did not exist.” (Palacios 2004:13) |
| Different kinds of surveys help demonstrate the present state, as well as the changing nature of religious belief in Spain. In December of 2003, the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (Center for Sociological Investigations, [CIS]) surveyed Spaniards asking them if they considered themselves (a) Catholic, (b) Believer of other Religion, (c) Not a Believer, or (d) Atheist. In the same survey, researchers asked a follow-up question to those who responded to the first question with either "Catholic" or "Believer of other Religion", by asking them how often they attend religious services or meetings. Spaniards responded in the following ways (see Table 1): |
Table 1
2003 Religious Breakdowns of Spaniards
How
would you define yourself in terms of
religion?
Possible Answers and responses:
Catholic 81.0%
Believer of other Religion 1.6%
Not a Believer 11.5%
Atheist 4.1%
No Comment 1.8%
With what frequency do you
attend mass or other religious
services?
Possible Answers and responses:
Almost Never 47.2%
Several Times Per Year 17.3%
Sometime in a Month 13.4%
Almost Every Sunday 18.2%
Several Times Each Week 3.0%
No Comment 0.8%
(Source: Center for
Sociological Investigations 2003: Study 2.548, Questions 38
& 38a.)
There are different ways to
examine and to view the religious belief of a given people.
Although the following information is from a period of time
before the survey cited above (and it differs greatly in
the response of those who consider themselves indifferent
and atheists), it is instructive in the way it views and
reports religious belief in Spain. From a 1989 study
published by the Fundación Santa María
(Saint Mary
Foundation), Pedro González Blasco (1993) reported that Spain's
population could be broken down into the following
categories: (a) Very good and practicing Catholics
15.4%, (b) Not very and non-practicing Catholics 45.9%,
and (c) Indifferent and atheists 38.1% (p. 28).
Religious surveys in Spain vary greatly. The significant
fact is that although a high percentage of Spaniards
consider themselves Roman Catholic, the majority of those
same people do not attend mass. Many Evangelicals believe
the many disgruntled Spaniards who still profess belief in
God outside the Catholic Church would be less reactionary
to Evangelicals were it not for the lingering social
stigmas against Protestants. To be sure, like most modern
societies, there are also other factors that influence
Spaniards negatively against Evangelical Christianity and
religion in general.
Evangelicals
In one of the more recent extensive works on Evangelical
Christianity in Spain, author José Martínez (1994) concludes with a
challenge for the gospel to be transmitted in such a way
that it effectively penetrates those who hear it in the
modern Spanish context. The problem is most Spaniards do
not appear to be willing to listen to any message
presented by Evangelicals. Martínez (p. 476) writes,
“Evangelical leaders would do well to dedicate
more time and attention to reflection on how to better
evangelize the Spaniards of our time”.
Spain today is more than a mission field, “It is a
neo-pagan field, much more difficult to evangelize than in
any previous period of time . . . it seems as if it is
immunized against the gospel” (Martínez 1994:402). Any presentation of the
Christian message is met immediately with an attitude of
rejection or indifference. Martínez writes that unless
Evangelicals find ways to gain “a greater
understanding of the existing cultural, moral, and
religious context of the people, more than likely their
words are not going to be more than a resounding gong or
a clanging cymbal” (p. 475).
The exact number of Evangelicals is difficult to determine,
because it varies, depending on the source. The reason is
because professional census research exclusively among
Spanish Evangelicals is almost non-existent. The Internet
news bulletin Protestante Digital
places the
number of Evangelicals in Spain at approximately
150,000, with another 200,000 people in the sphere of
influence of the Evangelical community (2004). From a
compilation of other sources, the number of Evangelical
churches in Spain has grown from 403 in 1970 to
approximately 1,800 in 2004 (Turnbough 2004).
The latest statistics available show there are 275 foreign
mission agencies working in Spain and 53 different
Evangelical denominations (Swick 1998).
Evangelical churches that consider themselves Pentecostal
have grown from 23 percent of all Evangelical churches in
1993 to 28 percent in 1997 (Rodriguez 1997). This is now
the largest group of churches in Spain.
Twenty-four percent of Evangelical churches in Spain belong
to what is known as the Philadelphia churches. This
movement or denomination is almost exclusively among the
Gypsy people. While this is noteworthy as one of the
largest single denominations in Spain, it is almost
exclusively among Gypsies and really has little or no
impact on the general Spanish population.
The breakdown of the other
major Evangelical groups as of 1997 were: Brethren 12%,
Independent Churches 11%, Southern Baptists 8%, churches
belonging to the Federation of Evangelical Churches in
Spain (which overlaps with members from many denominations)
7%, Reformed churches 5%, Baptists 3%, and others 2%
(Rodriguez 1997).
Spain is divided geopolitically in three ways:
autonomous regions, provinces, and municipalities. One way to examine the
Evangelical work in Spain is through the seventeen
larger autonomous regions, such as the
Comunidad de
Madrid, Andulucia, Galicia, etc. There are Evangelical
works in all of the autonomous regions.
Another way to
look at the Evangelical work in Spain is through its fifty
provinces. There are Evangelical works in all fifty
provinces. In terms of percentages, the majority of
Evangelical believers, Evangelical churches, and foreign
workers in Spain are in the Madrid Province.
Probably the
most revealing way to view the spiritual need in Spain is
by looking at the next geopolitical divisions, the
municipalities. There are 8,022 municipalities in Spain.
There are Evangelical works in 572 of those municipalities,
leaving 7,450 with no Evangelical church or work. Of the
7,450 municipalities with no Evangelical church, 491 have
more than five thousand (5,000) inhabitants. There are
thirteen million Spaniards living in municipalities with no
Evangelical witness. There is obviously a great need for
more local Evangelical churches in Spain.
Today there are 3.7 million immigrants in Spain, with that
number growing every day. Immigration has changed the face
of missions in Spain. Whereas Spaniards rarely visit
Protestant churches, immigrants in Spain visit Evangelical
churches frequently. One of the greatest challenges and
opportunities today in Spain is work among a growing number
of foreign ethnic populations. Pastor José Manuel recently
spoke at an "all Romanian" Evangelical church in Madrid,
where 800 Romanians crowd into a small storefront building
every Sunday. There are other growing ethnic churches in
Madrid. The challenge is to help integrate people of all
nationalities into the mainstream of the Evangelical
movement in Spain, as well as into local congregations and
communities. (See related article, Strangers in the
Land.)
The
religious climate and the development of the Evangelical
work in Spain is one of our major prayer concerns and one
of our major areas of study and continual investigation.
There is the need to pray for the cities in Spain with no
Evangelical churches and/or witness. Someone needs to
target these cities to begin new works. The least we can do
is pray for them, if not seriously consider going to them
ourselves. There are large segments of the population from
other parts of the world, living and working in Spain, who
are open to the gospel now. We are praying to ask God what
we can do, as well as making plans to launch new ministries
in these areas.
-----------------------------------
Center
for Sociological Investigations
2003 Center for Sociological Investigations (Centro de
Investigaciones Sociólogicas [CIS]). Madrid, Spain.
Retrieved December 22, 2003 from http://www.cis.es.
González
Blasco, Pedro
1993 Religión y Sociedad en la España de los 90 (Religion
and Society in the Spain of the 90s). Madrid, Spain:
Fundación Santa María.
Holy
Bible: New International Version
1984 Holy Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids,
MI: Zondervan.
Johnstone,
Patrick, and Jason Mandryk
2000 Operation World. O.M. Literature.
Martínez,
José M.
1994 La España evangélica ayer y hoy: Esbozo de una
historia para una reflexión (The Evangelical Spain
Yesterday and Today: A Sketch of History for Reflection).
Barcelona, Spain: Publicaciones Adamio.
Palacios,
A. Llamas
2004 Muchos viven como si Dios
no existiera (Many Live as If God Did Not Exist). Diario
ABC January 22, 2004:A22.
Protestante
Digital
2004 Historical/Social Summary
of Spanish Protestantism (Reseña histórico-social del
protestantismo español) Retrieved September 6, 2004
from: http://www.protestantedigital.com/documentos/historicos/histoferededoc/histoferede7.htm#2.1.
Rodriguez,
Esther
1997 Prayer Manuel
(Manuel
de Oración). Barcelona, Spain: Liga del
Testamento de Bolsillo.
Swick,
Dennis
1995 Demographic Study of the Province of Madrid
(Estudio
Demográfico de la Provincia de Madrid).
La Conferencia de
Evangelistas: Madrid. 1998 Statistics on Spain. Decision:
Madrid.
Turnbough,
Jeffrey A.
2004 A Religious Paradigm Shift for Adult Spaniards in the
Conversion Process to Evangelical Christianity. Doctoral
Dissertation. Biola University's School of Intercultural
Studies.
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